Much ado about mesh networking: A New York company whose emergency-response devices communicate through each other rather than through a centralized hub alone is expanding the technology to work on other kinds of wireless equipment.

One potential result: super-sized Wi-Fi hot spots.

By incorporating its mesh system into commercially available software and chip sets, MeshNetworks Inc. hopes to expand the use of the technology beyond specialized radios for police and firefighters.

Originally developed by the U.S. military, mesh networking lets individual radios serve as both receivers and relay points. A firefighter too far inside a building to reach command officials can communicate with a nearby firefighter, whose radio can broker the conversation to the next closest radio, and so on.

Mesh networks can transmit video, data and position information in addition to voice, so the technology could have wide applications.

Get rid of this junk: Americans are e-mailing less and trusting e-mail less because of the growing flood of junk messages, a survey finds.

Twenty-nine percent of e-mail users have reduced their overall use of the medium, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The snapshot from last month is higher than the 25 percent recorded in June, though still within the margin of sampling error.

Meanwhile, 63 percent of e-mail users say they are less trusting of e-mail overall because of spam. That’s up from 52 percent in June.

AOL begins bill-paying service: America Online Inc. subscribers can now use the Internet to pay some 2,500 utilities, credit card companies and others..

AOL this week began offering a free bill-paying service that operates differently from those of many online banks and other financial institutions.

Normally, you pay at the site of the online bank, and the bank forwards the payment, but it can take a day or two for the payment to clear. AOL Bill Pay takes you directly to the company’s site, where the consumer can pay by debiting a bank account or using a credit or debit card.

That gives customers more flexibility, allowing them to pay bills on the due date and keep their money longer, said Hill Ferguson, an executive with Yodlee Inc., which developed the software for AOL.

Customers can also check account balances or rewards point totals, Ferguson said.

AOL subscribers can use a single ID and password for all their outstanding bills and receive e-mail notices when they’re coming due.

Avivah Litan, an analyst with the Gartner Group, said the service has elements consumers have said they want: bills delivered via e-mail and payment at the company’s Web sites.

GPS added to new cellphones: Getting around in unfamiliar territory is no sweat with new cell phones equipped with global positioning system technology.

The GPS phones, which use satellites to find out where their bearer is at any time, work like car navigation equipment to guide people to their destination, said Nami Terai, spokeswoman for Japanese mobile carrier KDDI Corp.

Punch in a phone number, name of a building or other landmark, and the cellphone downloads a map of that area and directs you with an electronic voice: “Turn left at the next corner,” or “You have strayed from your route,” vibrating every time it speaks.

EZ Navi Walk, which KDDI first offered five months ago, now comes in three models. One has a compass feature with maps that turn as you walk in a different direction. If a place is far, EZ Navi Walk will advise you to take a train first.

Buy a Segway on time: To make the $5,000 Segway Human Transporter more affordable, the makers of the high-tech scooter have teamed up with a credit union to offer financing for about $100 a month.

“It is to give people more options as to how to pay for a Segway HT,” said Carla Vallone, spokeswoman for the Manchester, N.H.-based Segway LLC.

When Segways were unveiled in 2001, Kamen’s supporters predicted millions would be sold, transforming urban transportation.

But in September, when company issued a voluntary recall to fix a problem that caused riders to fall off when the batteries run low, it was disclosed that 6,000 Segways had been sold.

Associated Press